Introduction to Sera Monastery

Sera Monastery has been one of Tibet’s premier monastic educational institutions from its founding in the early fifteenth century until the present. Located about two miles north of Lhasa, and occupying an area of about one-third of a square kilometer, Sera Monastery is one of the three great monasteries (grwa sa) or “seats” (gdan sa) of the Geluk (dge lugs) school of Tibetan Buddhism. According to tradition, Tsongkhapa (tsong kha pa, 1357-1419), the founder of the Geluk school, composed his commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Root Verses on the Middle Way, entitled The Ocean of Reasoning (rigs pa’i rgya mtsho), in a small hermitage called Sera Chöding (se ra chos lding) in the foothills just above Sera around the year 1409. In the midst of writing this work, one of the folios of the text flew into the air in a gust of wind. It began to emit “a” letters (the symbol of the perfection of wisdom) in the color of molten gold. Some of the letters dissolved into a stone at the base of the hill and permanently imprinted themselves on it.